Alright, I’ve gone into great detail about vlogging, video equipment and how to create different types of videos. Now, It’s time to show you how I go about marketing, generating traffic and finding placement opportunities and with my videos

And, more importantly, how you can do the same with your own diy videos.

Before I get into details I want you to understand that my techniques don’t equate to immediate success. These techniques will yield results for some faster than others.

Let’s get into it shall we?

It’s All About The Trends!

That’s how I get the bulk of my work. If people are talking about it, I’m finding a way to profit from it. I rely on social media to feed me these leads and then I capitalize on them using the methods outlined in this post.

Talking Head Videos

What I look for are interesting topics to talk about. I pick things I feel will trend, are trending or have the ability generate heavy discussion.

Let’s take this for an example

Stitches Brick In Yo Face Riding Trends

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7f6WTDZ0rE

I created this video because I knew it would get people talking and there was already a market for his sound.

How did I know this? Easy, look at the guy for crying out loud. He has all the right ingredients for trolls and business.

• His appearance
• Where he’s from (Florida)
• Glorifies selling Drugs
• Very Confident
• Went Viral

I wanted to connect with three specific types of people with this video.

1. The trolls
2. Business savvy individuals
3. Potential Clients

How did this pan out?

Trolls: They did what they do best … Trash talk. Good comments/bad comments, doesn’t matter, it’s still engagement.

Business Savvy People: Commented and engaged with the message in the video even if they didn’t agree with the advice.

Potential Clients: Those who work in the industry offered me production gigs (some did).

Why Did This Work?

Because of how I positioned myself. The video did more than inform people about trends and why they are important. It basically yelled

“I’m more than willing to knock off songs and look I’m already contracted to do so”

When a new artist surfaces everyones all over social media trying to figure out as much as they can about them. Including those with the power to place music within tv/film.

My video ranked in the top 5 for “Brick In Yo Face” for about a week or two. In that time, there were a lot of eyes on my video, feedback and more importantly emails from professionals within my industry.

Those emails turned in placement opportunities. Some were right up my alley others weren’t. The ones that were  requested similar sounding instrumentals.

Those that weren’t required a vocalist. So I outsourced those. Then, as with anything else, you get the “for free” requests, those didn’t work for me either so I passed on them.

Instagram Trends #SavemyIG2014

Does everyone remember this hashtag? It was very popular in March 2014. Someone spread a rumor stating that Instagram would trash any accounts that didn’t retweet the graphic message.

If you’re posting #savemyIG2014 I am going to assume you’re genuinely stupid.

— SassyCountryQueen (@CountryQueen_51) March 6, 2014

All those dumbass people on Instagram posting #SaveMyIG2014 << pic.twitter.com/IXQvbMWwvi — Christian. (@OhhThatTwin) March 6, 2014

Hey everybody tweeting #savemyig2014 about your instagram getting deleted go read a book for #WorldBookDay bc you are dumb you are so dumb

— Nate Shenk (@shenkitup) March 6, 2014

I hate every single one of you who put that #savemyig2014 picture on Instagram — ℓαυяєи тιℓℓєу♡ (@LaurenTilley14) March 6, 2014

It was total BS, but it was popular, so rather than speaking negatively about like most were, I played into it.

I took a couple existing track vids from my Instagram account and put the SaveMyIG2014 hashtag on them. As a result, views spiked, traffic to my site spiked and I got a few requests about the videos that were tagged.

Why did this happen

Because people were afraid of losing their Instagram accounts. I don’t mean the kids and selfie addicts, but big names and companies that use IG for marketing. So the tag got popular really fast.

Also, 90% of the content using the tag were pictures so my videos stood out 🙂 and since video is fairly new to Instagram (compared to images) people were a little more enticed to click.

In the end, I made some good connections, and a few placements.

How You Can Do This For Yourself

Simple, follow the trends. They’re everywhere. Pick the ones you feel you can tackle and go from there.

Here are a few that are very easy for musicians and singer songwriters a like.

Create Video Cover Songs

Creating cover songs is the easiest way to get your face and sound out to the world. The song’s already proven, the market is there, all you have to do is tap into them. It’s the easiest way to build a following.

Music supervisors often check YouTube when looking for a cover song they can sync with film.

What To Do

Pay attention to hit songs (trends). When a hit song surfaces, cover it within the first week of it’s release. The sooner, the better. Timing here is important as being one of the first puts you in place to rank and receive a mass amount of traffic.

Traffic turns into engagement (likes/comments) which later turns into followers, your fan base.

How professional and elaborate your video looks is up to you. For times sake, I would suggest creating “Simple Video Songs” because they only take a few minutes to record and they’re very easy to edit.

Quick Resource

How To Create Video Songs

How To Edit Video Songs

Older songs work as well, but unless you have decent following to begin with, it’s going to be hard to get those videos to rank and get plays.

Follow Trending Events

I can’t say this enough. Where there’s a trend, there’s a opportunity for you to market yourself. My favorite example of this is done by Ali Spangnolia. She made a quick video on Richard Sherman’s Rant

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g-iQGe02nk

It was funny, creative and got a decent amount of views. Looking at her statistics, she got over 4,000 within the month of Jan, then it died down after the incident.

Had she spent more time on the marketing she’d have more views, shares, subscribers etc, but I don’t believe making the video go viral was here goal. Still a great display of following a trend.

Where To Place Your Videos

Once you’re done creating and editing your video, share them to popular social platforms that allow video.

YouTube
Instagram Etc

Any social platform that will allow you to embed or share your video. Twitter, for an example, shows a preview of the video along with an excerpt

If the platform doesn’t allow that, don’t bother with it.

As I’ve stated before, high profiled individuals use social media just like everyone else. Use this to your advantage!

Final Words

So, there’s a taste of what I do to generate placement opportunities and leads. I hope you’ve found it helpful, please share this post and leave any questions you have in the comment section.